


Battle Scars

by ImpishTubist



Series: Written in the Blood [3]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Angst, M/M, Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-06 16:12:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15889512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpishTubist/pseuds/ImpishTubist
Summary: Sometimes, it feels as though Noonien Soong’s long shadow encompasses them both.





	Battle Scars

**Author's Note:**

> I was prompted on Tumblr to write something around "Oh don't worry, the blood isn't mine" and of course Lore is the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to bloodshed, so.... *shrugs*
> 
> This takes place sometime after "Descent" and before "Caretaker" in this nebulous AU I have where Lore helps out the Maquis and also survives "Descent." And, yes, I do realize that the timeline of this story contradicts even my own headcanon regarding these two, but it demanded to be written, so here we are. :)

“Oh, don’t worry, this blood isn’t mine.”

“I’m not worried.” He’s never truly realized how much heavier an android body is than a human one, staggering slightly as he takes nearly all of Lore’s weight. Lore’s got an arm slung around his shoulders, and he can walk, though it’s more of a shuffle. Still, it’s better than nothing–Chakotay certainly wouldn’t be able to carry him, if it came to that. “Believe me, the last thing I am is worried. Are you leaking?”

Underneath the blood–a mix of Cardassian brown and human red–Chakotay thinks he can see yellow fluid oozing from small tears in Lore’s flesh. He’s got an arm clamped across his midsection, too, but Chakotay doesn’t need to ask about that one. He’d seen the weapon slice Lore diagonally across his torso, from under his ribcage to the opposite hip, and that arm is the only thing keeping Lore’s inner workings in place. Otherwise, gears and circuitry would have spilled onto the forest floor.

“I’m losing only a negligible amount of lubricant,” Lore responds, and then he looks sidelong at Chakotay, who can almost  _feel_ his wicked grin. “Fortunately for you.”

Chakotay rolls his eyes, even though he’s carefully navigating them through the dark, without a light, back to the ship. He doesn’t take his eyes off what little of the path he can see in the patches of moonlight that make it through the canopy. “I can live without you fucking me for a night. Not to mention that you’re hardly in any shape to do it.”

“Mm. Pity. You’re always so much more  _lively_ after a successful battle.”

Chakotay ignores that, concentrating instead on putting one foot carefully in front of the other. They’re among the last to return to  _Val Jean_. B’Elanna gives Chakotay a sour look as he deposits Lore in a chair in her engine room.

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to work on him,” Chakotay tells her. He’s taken some engineering courses in his time and learned some tricks in the field, and Lore is practically a cybernetics expert. They can manage. “Can I use some tools?”

She gives him a long, level stare.

“You know where to find them,” she says finally. “Make sure you clean up when you’re done.”

She leaves. Chakotay grabs the nearest engineering kit and pops it open, considering the equipment inside. The scanner seems the logical place to start, though he winces at what it shows him.

“The blast severed most of the connections to my legs.” Lore lets his head fall back against the high back of the chair. “You’ll have to reconstruct the connections. I could have told you that.” 

“And it’s also caused some of your other internal systems to go haywire.” Lore’s temperature regulators, for example, are all over the place. He’s too hot in some areas, far too cold in others. “Are you in pain?”

Lore looks at him–startled? As though he hadn’t anticipated that question at all. “Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters. You feel pain, don’t you?” Chakotay actually doesn’t know this, but it would stand to reason that Lore does. It doesn’t make sense for him  _not_ to have pain receptors, if they serve the same function for him as agony does for humans. “Tell me how to numb it. I need to repair this damage, but I don’t want you to feel anything while I do.”

Lore stares at him, unblinking. Finally, he says, “No one’s ever asked that before.”

“No one?” Chakotay blurts without thinking. “Not even Soong?”

Lore snorts, and rage bubbles suddenly in Chakotay’s chest.

“He had to have designed you this way, though,” Chakotay says, because he’s too aghast. He  _needs_ to make sense of it. “He had to have known….”

He trails off. Lore isn’t looking at him, his gaze instead fixed on a point somewhere over Chakotay’s right shoulder.

“I was the first. The first to survive, the first to live. I was largely an unknown, for all his brilliance. I developed many things… spontaneously. The ability to feel pain is one of them. Soong never knew.”

“You didn’t say anything to him.”

Lore drags his eyes to Chakotay’s face, and Chakotay sits back on his heels at the haunted look in them. “What would have been the point? It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

Chakotay can’t vow revenge against a dead man. So instead, he sucks in a sharp breath and says, “Well. We’re going to do something about it now.”

It takes the better part of an hour to find the proper switch, as it were. During that time, more fluid oozes from the cuts on Lore’s face, and the blood on his skin darkens and cracks. But Chakotay finally manages it, eventually finds a way to turn off Lore’s pain receptors. When he touches the gaping wound without eliciting a response, Lore visibly relaxes, shoulders slumping and arm falling away from its protective placement over his wound. Chakotay wipes the back of a hand across his sweaty forehead and huffs in triumph.

“Hard part’s over,” he says bracingly. “Piece of cake from here on out.”

“If you say so.” Lore’s eyelids flutter, such a human movement that for a moment Chakotay is disarmed. “I may shut down on you.”

“Go ahead. I’ll hook you up to your recharging station as soon as I’m done.”

Lore’s fingers trace the underside of his jaw, tilting his head up, and Chakotay is surprised when he surges forward abruptly for a kiss. Not that he allows himself to be surprised for long, and he returns the kiss with fervor. It’s not often that Lore is like  _this_ , openly affectionate without a biting quip or offhand remark that cools between them. He doesn’t allow himself moments like this–quiet and gentle, almost peaceful. Sometimes, it feels to Chakotay as though Soong’s long shadow encompasses them both. Other times, the man is rightfully forgotten, and there is only Lore. Lore and him, him and Lore. The two of them against the rest of the universe.

“Rest,” he says when Lore finally draws back. “I’ll take care of this.”

“Well, I’ll kill you if you don’t,” Lore says, leaning back, and Chakotay snorts.

“Sure you will.”

For a moment, Lore looks almost amused. Then, he enters sleep mode, and his eyes go vacant.


End file.
